One of the more taxing tasks involved in hand raking is the picking up of leaves or other raked material from the ground. Typically this involves stooping over and gathering the raked material with one hand against the tines of a rake held in the other hand.
To improve the ease of this task, various apparatuses have been suggested whereby two opposing rake heads are hinged in some fashion and may be operated so as to grasp and pick up a load of raked material. Gallo, U.S. Pat. No. 2,902,815 (Sept. 8, 1959) discloses a rake for grasping raked material. Ross, U.S. Pat. No. 2,908,131 (Oct. 13, 1959) discloses a rake having two opposing rakes hinged together in scissors fashion just above the rake head. The tines of each rake are constructed to protrude respectively between and beyond the opposing tines, allowing the implement to be used as a conventional rake in the closed position. When a pile of material is gathered, the two handles may be separated, causing the respective heads to separate, and allowing the tines to close in upon the raked material. Lawrence, U.S. Pat. No. 3,833,250 (Sept. 3, 1974) discloses another rake variation involving a single handle with a rake head on each end. The handle is lockingly hinged at two points, allowing the two rake heads to swing together for use as a pick-up rake. Finally, Gascon, U.S. Pat. No. 4,292,794 (Oct. 6, 1981) discloses a further variation in which an auxiliary rake head is moveably mounted upon a rake of conventional design.
All of the foregoing pick-up rake inventions have a number of shortcomings. Most of them require considerable apparatus in addition to the conventional rake. This involves added cost of manufacture, added weight, and often complexity of operation. In addition, most of these inventions do not allow the use of the "auxiliary" rake head for conventional raking, thereby adding to the total number of rake heads which must be purchased.